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Supported by A Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (No. 26461921) to T. Mizuguchi, (No. 26461920) to M, Meguro and (No. 25861207) to S. Ota

Core tip: The large degree of variation in the post-liver resection morbidity rates reported by previous studies might be due to a lack of consensus regarding the definitions and classification of post-liver resection complications. The Clavien-Dindo classification of postoperative complications is widely accepted internationally. However, it is difficult to apply to some major post-liver resection complications. Therefore, a unified classification of post-liver resection complications has to be established to allow comparisons between academic reports.